Medical Research Club

The collection comprises: minute books, 1891-1974; proposal books, 1891-1924; attendance books, 1891-1894; and a centenary history dating from 1991.

The collection is divided into sections as follows:

1/ minute books, 1891-1974

2/ proposal books, 1891-1924

3/ attendance books, 1891-1984

4/ centenary history, 1992.

The Medical Research Club gave its records to the library at Wellcome Collection in March 1994.

At Wellcome Collection: Further material relating to the Club can be found in the papers of Sir Graham Selby Wilson (PP/GSW). They include agendas 1964-1987, membership booklets 1937-1986, correspondence 1953-1978, notes for and the published version of Wilson's The Medical Research Club. The First Sixty Years 1891-1951 and a manuscript draft of a history of the Club 1951-1976. Sir Ernst Chain's (PP/EBC) papers include some correspondence with the Club. Other related collections include The Physiological Society (SA/PHY), and papers of the following Club members: Sir Henry Head (PP/HEA), Sir Charles Lovatt Evans (PP/CLE), and E.L. Kennaway (PP/ELK)

The catalogue is available on microfiche via the National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS).

Catalogued by Isobel Hunter, March 1995. This database description compiled by Christopher Hilton on the basis of that catalogue, May 2003.

The Medical Research Club was founded in 1891, for social as much as medical reasons, by London-based pathologists including Sir Almroth Wright and Sir John Bland Sutton. Its main object was the discussion of original work in general and pathological science, and it has always had a strong interest in microbiology, immunology, virology and molecular biology. Members are elected after the presentation of a paper and approval by the rest of the Club. Membership stood at 110 in 1993. Past members have included Sir Henry Dale, Sir Ernst Chain, Sir Charles Sherrington, Sir Howard Florey, Sir Alexander Fleming, Sir Henry Head and Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins.

During the period 1970-1994 these records were housed at the Royal Society of Medicine.